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JD Clayton is one of the first emerging artists to release music in an era of new leadership at the historic Rounder Records in Nashville. He’s an open-hearted guy who got the songwriting bug growing up in Fort Smith, AR and who then found his songs and his way on stage led to organic growth. His 2023 album Long Way From Home got him out on the road in a big way and led to some high profile opening shows. He produced his new album Blue Sky Sundays, a fresh and catchy take on country rock, with his brotherly band. He seems to embody the ethos of his feel-good song “High Hopes & Low Expectations.”

Featuring Matt Siffert, Melissa Erin & Pug Johnson.

Sean McConnell was born to do this. His parents were working songwriters who helped him get started as a teen in Atlanta. He landed a long-term song publishing deal while still in school at MTSU and earned cuts by Tim McGraw, Martina McBride, Brett Young, and the TV show Nashville. Over 15 recordings - his latest is the lovely and agonizingly honest Skin - McConnell has become a beloved troubadour on the indie folk circuit and an honorary red dirt Texas poet through extensive touring there. Now he’s grown as a producer working out of his unique studio in Nolensville. I made a trip down there to interview Sean in his cozy working habitat.

Featuring Lance Cowan, Jessie Gray & Tim Gartland.

Featuring Tom Hampton, Korby Lenker & Muriel Anderson.

Two anticipated acoustic/bluegrass albums dropped in the last couple of weeks, from North Carolina’s Chatham Rabbits and New York’s Nefesh Mountain, and I hope you’ll read my dual review at our WMOT Roots Radio News section. But here I want to spotlight Dusky Waters and her song “Southeasterly Wind,” which Amy Alvey suggested as part of a block representing artists she was excited about during her recent visit to Folk Alliance International in Montreal. The multi-instrumental artist’s given name is Jenn Jeffers, and she’s making waves in her adopted home town of New Orleans by co-founding “Black Americanafest,” which launched last September. Here, Dusky Waters wields an accordion in a brooding, mystical protest song from her second album, 2023’s Pass It On. Also in the Folk Alliance block, The Small Glories, spotlighting the fact that powerhouse vocalist Cara Luft is prepping a solo project, spanking new bluegrass from Liam Purcell, and a gorgeous string quartet from Medusa. This week also spotlights Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Tall Poppy String Band, and Wilson Banjo Co.

The Shoats or the Wild Shoats, depending on which thing you read about them, formed in 2023 and then immediately won the Appalachian String Band Music Festival’s Neo-Traditional Band Competition that year. Now the quartet is out opening dates for bluegrass band Big Richard. The personnel is West VA natives Mary Linscheid and Alex Heflin, and Pennsylvanian brothers Gus and Huck Tritsch. They’ve just released their debut album called Yell In The Shoats, and we’re sure to be tapping it in the coming weeks. We start with one of my favorite versions of the old folk song “Moonshiner” I’ve ever heard. You’ll have to wait to the end of the show to hear it, because it’s that good. On the way, we salute Jason Carter on the news that he’s retiring from the Del McCoury Band and the Travelin’ McCourys. And we offer new tracks from Unspoken Tradition and Graham Sharp, plus the return of fiddling Rhiannon Giddens, in a new duet with Justin Robinson.

When record man David Freeman was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2002, he was celebrated for setting “high standards for recording, documenting, and producing artist projects, raising the bar for the entire industry.” His main vehicles were County Records, which he founded in the 1960s to promote old-time and traditional music, and Rebel Records, one of the iconic bluegrass labels, which he acquired in 1979. This week, Amy and I focus on Rebel and County through the years, from its work with Ralph Stanley, the Country Gentleman and Seldom Scene in the early days through many albums by latter day legends Blue Highway, IIIrd Tyme Out, The Traditional Grass, Claire Lynch, Ronnie Bowman, Kenny & Amanda Smith, Paul Williams, Steep Canyon Rangers, Don Rigsby, Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers and Junior Sisk. You’ll hear many of those greats, plus the Kody Norris Show, one of Rebel’s current stars, with a brand new single.

Shelby Means has been a fast friend and key woman in the acoustic music scene at least as far back as the early days of the bluegrass band Della Mae. That’s when I first became aware of her powerful bass playing and singing anyway. In recent years, tens of thousands have come to know her as the driving rhythm machine in Molly Tuttle’s Golden Highway band, with whom she shared the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. This week, Amy, hosting solo, premieres Shelby’s first single as a solo artist, previewing a full album coming later this year. After that auspicious start, the show winds through Amy’s cool tastes for old-time, early blues, and down-home Cajun music, so it helps it landed just around Mardis Gras. You’ll hear a new Alison Krauss single too!

Featuring Leslie Jordan, A Lee Edwards & The Faux Paws.